Art

The Unified Artist

Cosmic concepts of true philosophy, the portrayal of celestial artistry, or the mortal attempt to depict the human recognition of divine beauty can never be truly satisfying if such attempted creature progression is ununified. These expressions of the divine urge within the evolving creature may be intellectually true, emotionally beautiful, and spiritually good; but the real soul of expression is absent unless these realities of truth, meanings of beauty, and values of goodness are unified in the life experience of the artisan, the scientist, or the philosopher. ~ The Urantia Book, (44:7.3)

Why Art is Important

The high mission of any art is, by its illusions, to foreshadow a higher universe reality, to crystallize the emotions of time into the thought of eternity. ~ The Urantia Book,(48:7.23)

In a high civilization, art humanizes science, while in turn it is spiritualized by true religion—insight into spiritual and eternal values. Art represents the human and time-space evaluation of reality. Religion is the divine embrace of cosmic values and connotes eternal progression in spiritual ascension and expansion. The art of time is dangerous only when it becomes blind to the spirit standards of the divine patterns which eternity reflects as the reality shadows of time. True art is the effective manipulation of the material things of life; religion is the ennobling transformation of the material facts of life, and it never ceases in its spiritual evaluation of art. ~The Urantia Book,(195:7.16)

What Makes Great Art

Beauty, art, is largely a matter of the unification of contrasts. Variety is essential to the concept of beauty. The supreme beauty, the height of finite art, is the drama of the unification of the vastness of the cosmic extremes of Creator and creature. Man finding God and God finding man—the creature becoming perfect as is the Creator—that is the supernal achievement of the supremely beautiful, the attainment of the apex of cosmic art. ~ The Urantia Book,(56:10.3)

The Role of Beauty in Art

The search for beauty is a part of religion only in so far as it is ethical and to the extent that it enriches the concept of the moral. Art is only religious when it becomes diffused with purpose which has been derived from high spiritual motivation. ~ The Urantia Book,(101:9.4)

Artresults from man's attempt to escape from the lack of beauty in his material environment... ~ The Urantia Book, (196:3.30)

Religion and Art

Religion stands above science, art, philosophy, ethics, and morals, but not independent of them. They are all indissolubly interrelated in human experience, personal and social. ~ The Urantia Book, (196:3.28)

Appreciating Art AND artists

No appreciation of art is genuine unless it accords recognition to the artist. ~ The Urantia Book, (195:7.16)

The scientist, not science, perceives the reality of an evolving and advancing universe of energy and matter. The artist, not art, demonstrates the existence of the transient morontia world intervening between material existence and spiritual liberty. ~The Urantia Book,195:7.23

Mortal Morontia

Art proves that man is not mechanistic, but it does not prove that he is spiritually immortal. Art is mortal morontia, the intervening field between man, the material, and man, the spiritual. Poetry is an effort to escape from material realities to spiritual values. ~ The Urantia Book, (195:7.15)

Celestial Artisans

Andthis is the story of the celestial artisans, that cosmopolitan body of exquisite workers who do so much to glorify the architectural spheres with the artistic portrayals of the divine beauty of the Paradise Creators. ~ The Urantia Book, (44:8.6)

Whereasyour artists must resort to inert paint and lifeless marble to portray their concepts, the celestial artisans ... more frequently utilize living materials to represent their ideas and to capture their ideals. ~ The Urantia Book,(43:6.7)

Youwill first begin to glimpse these transplanted arts of Havona on the mansion worlds, and their beauty and your appreciation of their beauty will heighten and brighten until you stand in the spirit halls of Salvington and behold the inspiring masterpieces of the supernal artists of the spirit realms. ~ The Urantia Book, (44:0.7)

Suchartisans are distributed throughout the grand universe—on the headquarters worlds of the superuniverses, the local universes, the constellations, and systems, as well as on all spheres settled in light and life; but their chief realm of activity is in the constellations and especially on the seven hundred seventy worlds surrounding each headquarters sphere. ~ The Urantia Book, (44:0.1)

Althoughcelestial artisans do not personally work on material planets, such as Urantia, they do come, from time to time, from the headquarters of the system to proffer help to the naturally gifted individuals of the mortal races. ~ The Urantia Book, (44:8.1)